Battlefield 3 beta hacked, tournament beckons

Although EA’s shooter has been exposed to fire by some members of the public testing it, namely hackers who’ve cracked the player limit.

For testing purposes, this is capped at 32 players, but the finished release will allow for up to 128 player battles – and the hackers have managed to fiddle the Operation Metro map so it can support the full 100+ conflict.

Needless to say, EA isn’t particularly happy, but the company appears to have reacted rather harshly. Anyone playing in one of these “illegal” 128 player limit games could find themselves banned from Origin, EA’s digital store where the beta client is downloaded from.

And where all the EA games which players have bought are kept – meaning if you are banned, you won’t just be unable to play Battlefield 3, but also any other game you’ve purchased from EA.

That seems rather unfair, particularly as you don’t have to do anything underhand or sneaky to locate these over-32-player sessions, they appear in the server browser anyway. And the ignorant could click and join without knowing.

A bit of a fuss has been kicked up over this, so it remains to be seen whether EA will alter its initial position of this Origin-wide ban for player limit transgressors. The company might rethink given some of the reactions from the community, bloggers and gaming sites alike.

In other Battlefield 3 news, Richard Branson has appeared in a YouTube video to promote the upcoming BF3 “Worldwide Conquest Tournament”, which aims to find the best on the Battlefield with a stonking $1.6 million worth of prizes up for grabs.

Heats will take place online, followed by the finals which will be played out in some exotic locale where Branson has just been (his private island, perhaps?).

Unfortunately it seems only Xbox and PS3 gamers can get in on the competition, with no option for PC gamers to sign up and compete.